Editor's Corner

Greetings to you!

Today’s topic has been on my mind for some years now, and I finally decided to discuss it here. It’s a small but curious difference between British and U.S. English.

Here in the States, we add the article the before the word hospital. We say, “I’m going to the hospital.” In the UK, they say, “I’m going to hospital.”

The British phrasing has always sounded odd to me. I thought that dropping the was just another quaint British quirk. And then a while back I did a little digging and found out that what I thought was an oddity of British English is actually an oddity of U.S. English. We Yanks are not consistent in this phrasing—we don’t always add the—and I realized that there really isn’t much logic behind how and when we do use the in terms like the hospital. Here are some examples of when we don’t use the:

We say, “We go back to school in August,” not “to the school.”

And we say, “After high school, I went to college,” not “to the college.”

And not that any of you have reason to say this, but hypothetically speaking, you would say, “I was convicted and went to prison,” not “to the prison.”

My research did not turn up any rule or reason for this usage or the inconsistency. This just seems to be one more regional difference between British and U.S. English.

So, put that in the boot of your car and drive off down the dual carriageway.

Donna Bradley Burcher |Technical Editor, Advisory | jack henry

Pronouns she/her/hers

9660 Granite Ridge Drive, San Diego CA 92123

Symitar Education Resources (sharepoint.com)

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Editor’s Corner keeps your communication skills sharp by providing information on grammar, punctuation, JHA style, and all things English. As editors, we spend our days reading, researching, and revising other people’s writing. We love to spend a few extra minutes to share what we learn with you and keep it fun while we’re doing it.

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